Genome Editing for the Development of Rice Resistance against Stresses: A Review

Abstract

Food security is the most crucial issue faced by humans considering the rising population. Rice, a staple food consumed by nearly 50% of the world’s population, faces challenges to meet the consumers’ demand to ensure self-sufficiency amidst various abiotic and biotic stresses. Drought, salinity, heat, and infection by bacteria and viruses are the main challenges in rice cultivation. Genome editing technology provides abundant opportunities to implement selective genome modifications. Moreover, it finds the functional implications of different genome components in rice and provides a new approach for creating rice varieties tolerant of stresses. This review focuses on rice production worldwide and challenges faced in rice cultivation, and current genome editing tools available that can be utilised for crop breeding and improvement. In addition, the application of genome editing to develop biotic and abiotic resistance rice varieties is critically discussed.